Conte wel­comes Kante headache

LON­DON — The ar­rival of French mid­fielder N'Golo Kante dur­ing the close sea­son has given new Chelsea man­ager An­to­nio Conte a wel­come se­lec­tion headache in mid­field.

Kante, who joined from Le­ices­ter City, is Conte's sec­ond sign­ing of the close sea­son and has brought ad­di­tional qual­ity to a mid­field, which in­cludes the likes of Ne­manja Matic, Cesc Fabre­gas and Os­car.

"N'Golo is an im­por­tant player and for this rea­son we bought him. I can't wait to trans­fer my idea of foot­ball to him and find a dif­fer­ent so­lu­tion," the Ital­ian told the club's web­site.

"The play­ers in a great team like Chelsea must know there are many play­ers that can play. It's im­por­tant for me to have a good choice to try the best so­lu­tion game by game."

Chelsea have no in­ten­tion of sell­ing Matic with Conte in­sist­ing the 27-year-old is very much part of his plans for the new sea­son.

"Matic is an im­por­tant player for me, a very im­por­tant player. In my idea of foot­ball he is an im­por­tant player and he knows this," Conte said. "I am de­lighted with his at­ti­tude and be­hav­iour and I see in him a great com­mit­ment."

With Ju­ven­tus mak­ing Gon­zalo Higuain the third most ex­pen­sive player and Manch­ester United set to com­plete the 100 mil­lion pound sign­ing of Paul Pogba, ac­cord­ing to me­dia re­ports, Conte said he was frus­trated by the "crazy" trans­fer mar­ket. "This sea­son we are see­ing a crazy mar­ket. It's in­cred­i­ble . . . I don't know if this sit­u­a­tion can con­tinue," Conte told Bri­tish me­dia.

"It's very dif­fi­cult for all the teams to try and buy the play­ers. Now, we are start­ing to speak about £100 mil­lion, £120m, £95m, and th­ese prices are in­cred­i­ble."

Conte will be­gin his ten­ure in Eng­land with a Lon­don derby against West Ham United at Stam­ford Bridge on Au­gust 15. — Reuters